Post-mortem vs Newcastle

Red Warrior

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Back 2: Clowns
Midfield: No bite. Back to LVG days of sidewards and backwards. Pogba clearly shouldn’t have been on the pitch.
Forwards: Did ok, Lukaku was everywhere for once, Sanchez tried but it wasn’t enough. Couldnt break down 11 men.

Where the hell do we go from here? We need Southampton to pull out a draw for us.
 
De Gea nothing to do after that early save, no chance with goal and dealt well with a few tricky backpasses.
Smalling stupid mistake which got punished
Jones didn’t really do anything wrong but not sure why he came back in for Rojo
Young & Valencia same comment for both really offered very little quality going forward but had almost nothing to do defensively.
Matic really poor again with his passing sloppy and clearly in need of a rest or a kick up the backside.
Pogba never looked fit from the start couldn’t sprint or jump still played some delightful passes but very culpable on the goal as he didn’t challenge on the first ball.
Lingard had 1 shot which was easily saved but looked more like the Jesse Lingard than Messi Lingard and has done for a few weeks now, possibly the man who will miss out going forward.
Martial wasted our best chance but I think actually did alright playing from the right
Lukaku good hold up play but never really looked like scoring chances didn’t really fall his way today.
Sanchez usual bright spark but why didn’t he shoot when he was round the keeper that hesitation allowed defenders to get back.

I think the truth is 5 or 6/10 performances from everyone no one really stepped up to win the game and we were hit with a bit of a sucker punch goal.

Still looks like a group of individuals rather than a team which 18 months in is worrying but it’s something that could easily click into place if he just picked a settled starting XI.
 
The lack of cohesion in United's attacking play was very disappointing.

Dubravka covered the cracks in Newcastle's defence.
 
Still feels like they’re learning how to play with Sanchez and likewise him with them but I actually think the front 3 are starting to get on the same wavelength at times. Sanchez is on to the 2nd ball from Lukaku quite a bit he’s reading that nicely which makes me think Lukaku is. Happier battling for it knowing someone is backing him up.

The full backs need to offer us more they’re the ones who need to be putting in the crosses or providing the cut backs but Young is easy to defend as he always cuts back making it hard for the striker and Valencia doesn’t get forward much.

Pogba today could only really sit deep and create which he did but he couldn’t burst past people and get into the box.
 
Still looks like a group of individuals rather than a team which 18 months in is worrying but it’s something that could easily click into place if he just picked a settled starting XI.

Couldn't agree more, we just seem disjointed. 2 seasons ago we were crying out for the Pogba type player, now were crying out for another midfielder to get the best out of Pogba. we seem to literally play in 3 rows, defence - midfield - forwards with no real like between. Was sick to death yesterday of the sidewards and backward passing, balls from the centre line being hoofed all the way back to De Gea. Jesus, we're never gonna score doing that. Sanchez seems to be the only player who knows which was to go.
 
Absolutely shocking, sick to death of trying to defend them when they don't give a sh*t themselves, I mean Pogba what are you doing you absolute clown, if your not fit then tell the god dam manager and come off, we played with virtually 10 men until he was hauled off, who is he helping bar is flaming hairdresser by staying on that long, he cost us the goal and hardly made a run all game!

Matic needs to be taken out, absolutely horrendous, in two away games he has just passed the ball out of play 3 times when trying to find a team mate, absolutely shocking, I would bench the pair of them start with Carrick and McTominey for the next league game.

Martial played alright but my god, my nan could have scored a brace yesterday, first finish zero power and how can you have two efforts at putting it into a half open goal from 6 yards out and no score! Just lift the thing!

Sanchez had some good touches but surely he has to finish that chance, dear me!

Big Rom had a very good game his passing, hold up play etc much better but hardly had a chance himself.

The back four don't even get me started, tried defending Young last week but the lot of them can just get sold, sick to god dam death of watching that drivel, Smalling no tackles won all game and that dive, what are you doing you weapon, and the blatant penalty, mans a liability.

Rant over, heads gone, sick to god dam death of the lot of them!
 
That's a problem for Lukaku isn't it? why does he constantly have games where he doesn't get a chance. he needs to adapt his game.

The loss is because of the defence, Philip Neville summed up my thoughts of the past two years on Match of the Day, the defence makes the team nervous. The back 4 we fielded yesterday is not the back 4 of a prem/CL winning team
 
Where's the delivery coming for Lukaku? 2 wingers that are looking to score themselves while our 2 full backs aren't overlapping and looking to get crosses in, Young has to cut back to cross. He has his uses and gives his all but we need a left back who can overlap and look to get to the line and whip in a cross, don't get me wrong Shaw isn't great at crossing either but at least when he plays he's turning full backs and going past them. Valencia has been great at RB but his time is coming to an end too, he can't beat players anymore and to me looked to be really struggling yesterday with a possible injury that a few seem to playing with.

I'm not a big fan of our 2 CB's yesterday but full back and improving the midfield further are still more pressing options transfer market wise.

Mourinho should be getting more out of what he's got though. A few weeks back Mourinho mentioned Matic was playing with problems and he still looks as though he's playing through that and yesterday Pogba also looked to be playing with an issue. Fellaini is out long term, Herrera is injured, Carrick is 3 months from retiring which leaves McTominay as our only current fully fit midfielder.

And as SB said above and elsewhere, there is no cohesion to our attacking play, just look like they've been sent out there and we're just hoping for a bit of individual brilliance from one of them. There's no partnerships.
 
@Edgy1968 your rants crack me up (sorry mate). I couldn't have ranted better myself. To be honest I'm beginning to lose faith, I've been expecting things to change over the last few months but the manager seems devoid of any idea to make the change happen. The 4231 clearly doesn't work well with Pogba, the whole world knows it so why cant Jose see it? Although Martial did kinda ok on the right why change the team like this half way thru a season. At least keep the continuity of the team going by keeping Martial left and Sanchez right then maybe over summer implement the change so they have time in training to adapt. Jose has not only thrown in a new player to adapt to the team but changed our best players position as well at the same time. Baby steps Jose, baby steps!

Surely it's time to say goodbye to 2 centre backs (mentioning no names) and get one decent one in. Lindelof needs game time and lots of it if he is to partner Bailly which I'm sure the future intention was when they bought him.

Matic has been dreadful and getting worse. As Edgy says, he's put the ball out of play 3 times looking for a pass in 2 games now. Mind you he did play 1 absolutely exquisite defence cutting pass through from midfield yday. But overall he's just poor. i think for the last TEN matches he wouldn't have got more than 5/10 for each game.

Pogba looks completely lost. Even the commentators were saying he looked injured early on but he gave the thumbs up to Jose to say he was ok when he was clearly not. He couldn't sprint or even jump for a header. WTF is going on. Does he have a clause in his contract stating how many minutes a season he has to play or something as there is clearly something amiss leaving him on the pitch like he was.

I also saw a stat after the game that De Gea has the highest save percentage in the league. We can argue all we want about this stat but at the end of the day he's having to make save cos we have a dodgy cb pairings.

And why inst Shaw getting game time again?

And as a footnote, Lukaku won't score if he doesn't get decent service.

Necessity signings: 2 x CM, 1 x CB
Possible future signing: A manager who plays attacking football that can change tactics when needed
 
I'm not buying the Mourinho needing to go thing. You don't become a bad manager overnight. I listened to a podcast on Mourinho the other day and his career speaks for itself. He will get it right we've got to have faith in him and let him come good as we can't just keep changing managers and starting from step 1 again. The club isn't set up to have rotation of managers like say Chelsea are.
 
Couldn't agree more, we just seem disjointed. 2 seasons ago we were crying out for the Pogba type player, now were crying out for another midfielder to get the best out of Pogba. we seem to literally play in 3 rows, defence - midfield - forwards with no real like between. Was sick to death yesterday of the sidewards and backward passing, balls from the centre line being hoofed all the way back to De Gea. Jesus, we're never gonna score doing that. Sanchez seems to be the only player who knows which was to go.

I think we got Pogba then asked him to be something he wasn't doing at Juventus so we can try and play a number 10 despite us not having a world class number 10, that really bugs me I can undertand why we started with a number 10 as he had to give Rooney a shot as the captain but once Wayne played his way out of the team we should've gone to 433. I guess last season we couldn't do that as we didn't really have enough players and he'd made it clear he wasn't going to play Rooney as a CM. Pogba should be playing like Lampard was at Chelsea in his prime just facing forward still got to work hard and get back in when the team loses the ball but you expend your energy going forward because you've got guys behind to cover you. De Bruyne has this luxury at City he still does some defending but he's allowed to focus more on the attacking side of the game.

Matic has come in as a Carrick replacement great start but now he's struggling but apart from a ball to Pogba he doesn't always have an option to play forward and he doesn't have the passing range than Carrick had he can only really go short if we want to go long we have to play to Pogba who then switches the play. Herrera was injured yesterday as was Fellaini which limits his options in midfield but I really think they should've started McTominay instead of Lingard and allowed Pogba to play further forward.

I think the lack of centre midfield options has been a problem for us this season Pogba/Fellaini/Carrick have all missed a lot of football, Herrera struggled for form at the start and seems to be in the managers bad books (I wonder if he's being difficult over his contract) & Matic looks burned out which happened to him with Chelsea as well. Yesterday Newcastle really dominated us in there in the first 10 minutes after that we got control of the game but once Pogba went off they got in our faces again and took control again.

Our full backs don't push forward and pin a team in possibly because they're worried about the centre defence being exposed a Utd centre back gets way more protection than City/Liverpool/Arsenal/Spurs do so you don't get those overloads in attacking positions. These teams have players who start high and sprint back to recover we have full backs who start deep and sprint forward they are defensive players first whereas other teams they are attacking players. If you want to see the importance of good full backs with high energy levels just watch City this season compared to last season when they had old guys who couldn't handle the sprints anymore.

I think what Sanchez has given us is someone who's alive to the ball at all times he's constantly looking at where the ball might break or where he can nip in and steal it whereas Martial tends to wait and watch to see where it goes Sanchez gambles on where it will go. So if it's going long to Lukaku he will look to get close to try and win the 2nd ball as it's very unlikely Lukaku will bring it down under pressure from a centre back from a 70 yard kick, if it's going over Lukaku he will gamble on a flick on. I think this is where Mourinho find Martial/Rashford a bit frustrating they don't anticipate what will happen they react to what has happened at which point it's maybe to late as the chance has gone.

To be totally honest yesterday we didn't play well but if Martial or Sanchez take their one vs one chance we walk away with 3 points probably end up winning 2 or 3 nil and all go home happy, we weren't clinical and were punished by some sloppy defending on a set piece. I'm not sure making the subs straight away after the goal helped but with Rashford out we only really had Mata as an option off the bench and he did ok. I thought having conceeded that goal we should've changed the first sub and took Matic off for Carrick and given Pogba another 10-15 minutes before he came off but if the injury was there despite what the manager said post game I can see why he took him off.

That's 4 defeats on the road this season 2 to be expected at Chelsea & Spurs and 2 Huddersfield & Newcastle where we have to feel we've dropped points as in both games sloppy defending has cost us goals and we've failed to get anything going in attack.
 
@redwarrior haha mate that was calm considering how I felt yesterday haha I was losing the will to live watching that I really was, it looks to me like they think its all a laugh, ah will try a few tricks and a few worldies, if they don't come off we don't really care we can't win the league so sod it, get a few dance moves on Instagram after the game life is all good.

I don't think we should get rid of Jose yet, but I will agree that this is a massive massive summer coming up, he has to get this right as going into his 3rd season, he can't say he doesn't have the squad he wants, this will be his team, his squad, his first choice formation/tactics.

I'm kind of writing the league off now, I'm not one of those fans who celebrates getting top 4, it should be a given at this club, if were not 1st then I'm really not bothered if we finish 2nd, 3rd etc. makes no difference.

I would tear open that midfield in the summer, only ones I would keep are Pogba, Matic (he surely has to get better jesus) and McTominey, I would buy 2 maybe 3 CM's, one of which would be Vidal because we need a no nonsense hard mofo to kick some god dam a**.

I wouldn't even be bothered if we didn't sign any attackers this summer, Martial left, Sanchez right, Lukaku through the middle, some serious metal in the middle of the park, tell Pogba to remove the iron pole from his backside, give Matic a slap across the chops and a bit of serious competition for them.
 
Anybody think that maybe 3 at the back could be a solution regarding our full backs getting forward, playing Sanchez, Martial inside behind Lukaku?

DDG
Lindelof Bailly Rojo
Valencia Pogba Matic Shaw
Sanchez Martial
Lukaku
 
Even when we do that though we seem to play defensive full backs so we end up in a 5-4-1 formation rather than a 3-5-2
 
Matic has not had a rest and plays while injured, I'm not surprised he's off the.

Philip Neville last night showed how useless Jones and Smalling are and why they are causing so many problems. Neither of them offer themselves to De Gea so he has to go long and their positioning is terrible.
 
To me one obvious solution is play Shaw every game on the left then rotate Young/Valencia on the right as both can get forward, get another centre mid in alongside Matic to release Pogba to focus on attack but also should help us retain possession and just put faith in this front 3 and try to build some chemistry from them.

The big concern for me is the focus and mentality the team doesn't always seem up for it which you can't really level at City and even Liverpool/Spurs always seem pumped up and ready to go we seem to go through the motions a bit rather than be on it from the first minute. Newcastle did the same thing they did at Old Trafford they stormed us for about 15 minutes trying to get a goal before dropping off it didn't really work yesterday but they created a few early chances forcing a good save from De Gea.
 
Anybody think that maybe 3 at the back could be a solution regarding our full backs getting forward, playing Sanchez, Martial inside behind Lukaku?

DDG
Lindelof Bailly Rojo
Valencia Pogba Matic Shaw
Sanchez Martial
Lukaku
Not entirely sure that’ll solve any problem, Valencia is not really providing much width anymore and well Shaw is behind Young at the moment (who knows why) so it would be Young in that line up.

We again would still have the problem if Pogba not playing in a two man midfield. It’s amazing we have spent so much money and we 1) don’t know our best team 2) there seems to be no awareness of what Pogba’s best position is 3) the team is playing like a bunch of individuals 4) we still play Smalling and Jones together - which has to be bordering on torture for us fans now.
 
Whatever we do we need to get Martial back on the left where he's been devastating.

I'd be tempted to stick to the 4-2-3-1 provided Pogba is fit. Rest Matic for a while and go

Valencia Bailly Rojo Shaw

Herrera Pogba

Mata Sanchez Martial

Lukaku

In this formation i'd also be half tempted to drop Lukaku and put Rashford up top or put Matic alongside Herrera and get Pogba further forward with Sanchez going up top. I say that because having Lukaku in this formation just isn't working for him. I wonder how many of his goals came from Coleman/Baines crosses. At Everton he has the two best crossing full backs in the country getting the ball in to him. He isn't even getting chances to miss at the moment.
 
As good as Martial has been on the left he's not been as good as Sanchez on the left for the last 2 1/2 seasons you put your best players in their best positions.

That sucks for Martial but that's reality if he wants to play LW he needs to be better than Sanchez.

I think Martial can learn to play on the right and he'll play that role like Mata did where you drift in and go where you want you don't really have to defend.

I actually think we need to start rotating Lukaku once Rashford is fit again Lukaku isn't doing enough in my opinion to be untouchable up front.
 
As good as Martial has been on the left he's not been as good as Sanchez on the left for the last 2 1/2 seasons you put your best players in their best positions.

That sucks for Martial but that's reality if he wants to play LW he needs to be better than Sanchez.

I think Martial can learn to play on the right and he'll play that role like Mata did where you drift in and go where you want you don't really have to defend.

I actually think we need to start rotating Lukaku once Rashford is fit again Lukaku isn't doing enough in my opinion to be untouchable up front.

The thing that makes me laugh with all this is that we all agree we have issues CM, CB, RW and the full backs, but we go out and buy a guy to replace arguably our best outfield player this season, talk about not taking care of your issues haha

Chatting to a mate in the pub last night and we were chatting about money spent United and City, Pep basically said I need a new defence, goes out and buys a keeper, 3 full backs and 2 CBs, ppl go mad that he has spent all this money on his back line but it is what was needed, all these world class players have been available in the market but he has not dived in and bought anyone that he doesn't need or a position that is already filled.

We just seem to say "ah he is a name, we will buy him and fit him in somewhere, but guess what, his shirt sales are through the roof" whooopdeflamingdoo!
 
Sanchez has been a double edge sword for us. On one hand we have just bought a world class player, on the other he has just displaced our best player. You could argue that we should have bought someone to fill another position but when you have a chance to get a worldy you cant turn that down either.
 
Just read we're planning a £50m for Harry Maguire. Yes read that again.
 
should have just kept Jonny Evans lol

Maybe Jose could pull off another swap deal with Jones and Smalling and £49,500,000 haha
 
An image of the average player positions v Newcastle is below. The gap between Pogba and Matic/centre backs is too big.

3492ljc.png
 
There are a lot of players I’d like to see in more advanced average positions. I’m surprised Valencia and Young made it to the half way line!
 
Just read we're planning a £50m for Harry Maguire. Yes read that again.
Maybe not £50m but I really rate Maguire, think he’s a terrific defender and can actually play the ball out instead of holding the ball to no-one. When we played Leicester I thought he was very very good. Not worth £50m but who’s worth anywhere near their transfer fees these days.
 
Not been impressed by Maguire in big games at Leicester he’s a big lump and can play a bit but I’d be very concerned over his ability to step up to that next level.

12 months ago Keane looked a top prospect now he’s drowning at Everton.

A Utd defender needs to be able to defend on the half way line and not be worried out defending the space in behind then go deep when we need to which is how Mourinho tends to play it just look at that position map above Utd are much higher up the pitch over 90 minutes.

I don’t think Maguire is bad just think if Utd are going to buy another CB we’ve got to be aiming for a top class one we’ve got enough 7/10 defenders.

I think the Sanchez thing was tough we couldn’t let City get him as well and stretch that gap but it didn’t really solve a problem position we strengthened a strength rather than a weakness which is fine when you’re already a highly functioning side but we aren’t.

I think Martial just needs to take on the challenge and learn the new position on the right and try to learn from a guy like Sanchez.
 

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